The Greatest Comeback?

The greatest British bike racer? Surtees? Sheene? Both have good claims to the title but, in reality, there can be only one king. This is the story of the race that only served to enhance an already glittering reputation.

- Harry Fisher

Imagine this; the greatest bike racer of his generation – some would say all time - has been retired for 11 years. He stopped at the peak of his profession and went car racing instead. He didn’t do too badly. Then he had a bad accident and that was the end of his racing career.

Four years later rumors start to circulate that he is going to make a comeback at the greatest, most difficult, most deadly circuit there is; The Isle of Man TT. The rumours turn out to be true. He does come back. And he wins; beats some of his old adversaries and all the new bloods who have assumed his mantle in the intervening years.

To prove it wasn’t a fluke, he comes back again the following year – without having ridden competitively in the interim – and wins again. This could only be the story of one man; Mike Hailwood.

At the end of the 1967 season, Honda, for whom Hailwood was riding, announced their decision to pull out of competition; they had achieved all their goals, won everything. They paid Hailwood to not ride for any other manufacturer and thus drew the curtain on a stunning career; 9 world championships, 76 GP wins and 14 TT wins.

With the bike world closed to him he turned to four wheels. He was good, too; in Formula 1, Sports Cars, and Formula 2. Then came the accident at the Nurburgring in ’74 which smashed his right foot and ankle and that was it. Living in New Zealand and bored as hell, the seed of a mad idea started germinating in his mind. He was still fit, young – only 38 – and possessed of a desire get back to what he did best. There was only one place to do this; the Isle of Man, where the legend had been built all those years ago.